Archaeologists unearth remains of oldest Norman ever found which ‘fills gap in our knowledge of pre-Neanderthal evolution’ – “On a bend of the river Seine near Rouen in Normandy, archaeologists have found the remains of the oldest Norman ever discovered. The three bones from the left arm of a pre-Neanderthal should shed fresh light on a little-known period. In particular, they could help scientists to understand the evolution of the squat, muscular hunters who died out 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, just after the first humans arrived in what is now Europe. The discovery of the bones at Tourville-la-Rivière, 14km south of Rouen, is exceptional because ‘this is a period with very few fossils’, according to Bruno Maureille, a palaeontologist at the National Centre for Scientific Research. He said the arm bones, dating from 200,000 years ago, in the Middle Pleistocene era, were ‘the only known example from northern Europe’.”

Europe the birthplace of art? Cave art shows Indonesia has a claim – “Using this method, the researchers determined that one of the hand stencils they sampled was made at least 39,900 years ago and that a painting of an animal known as a pig deer was at least 35,400 years old. In Europe, the oldest known cave painting was of a red disk found in a cave in El Castillo, Spain, that has a minimum age of 40,800 years. The earliest figurative painting, of a rhinoceros, was found in the Chauvet Cave in France; it goes back 38,827 years.”

Draft of paper about Amish – “[T]he difference in mean AQ [‘amishness’] between young Amish men and their non-Amish neighbors is about 2.8 standard deviations. In the IQ world this would correspond to a group different of 42 points. In the stature world this would correspond to a height difference of about 8 inches.” – from henry harpending. see also Amish v. English from steve sailer.

Evolutionary behavioral genetics – “We describe the scientific enterprise at the intersection of evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics — a field that could be termed Evolutionary Behavioral Genetics — and how modern genetic data is revolutionizing our ability to test questions in this field.”

coolest story! a MUST READ!: Finding Clues in Genes of ‘Exceptional Responders’ – “One study at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center tested a drug called everolimus that is approved for kidney and breast cancer. Researchers asked if it could treat bladder cancer. Forty-five patients received the drug. Two responded. ‘The verdict was, “O.K., I guess everolimus does not work in bladder cancer,” ‘ said Dr. David Solit, the principal investigator. But then there were those two patients — one, in particular. Her cancer had spread to her abdomen. She was expected to live less than a year, and there was no treatment for her. But with everolimus, her tumors disappeared. ‘I was at a clinical meeting, and everyone was saying this drug did not work,’ Dr. Solit said. ‘I said, “It worked for her.” ‘ The investigators found out why. Her cancer had a mutation in a gene that made it dependent on a protein, mTOR, for growth. Everolimus squelches the activity of mTOR. The woman is still taking everolimus, and her cancer has not recurred.”

The high heritability of educational achievement reflects many genetically influenced traits, not just intelligence – “Genetic research has shown that intelligence makes a major contribution to the heritability of educational achievement. However, we show that other broad domains of behavior such as personality and psychopathology also account for genetic influence on GCSE scores beyond that predicted by intelligence. Together with intelligence, these domains account for 75% of the heritability of GCSE scores. These results underline the importance of genetics in educational achievement and its correlates.” – (because there’s more to hbd than just iq!)

The role of lactase persistence in precolonial development – “It is shown through a number of specifications that country-level variation in the frequency of lactase persistence is positively and significantly related to population density in 1,500 CE; specifically, a one standard deviation increase in the frequency of lactase persistent individuals (roughly 24 percentage points) is associated with roughly a 40 % increase in precolonial population density.”

Big Chickens – “More evidence that common genetic variants can produce many standard deviations of change in average phenotype.”

The Giant Mutations in the Human Genome – “It turns out that there is a class of giant DNA mutations that share features of developmental disorders: They are surprisingly common, frustratingly diverse, and hard to categorize. Researchers are now discovering that these mutations play a big role in developmental delay disorders. The baffling symptoms are a consequence of the underlying genetic turmoil…. These large mutations are called ‘copy number variants’ or CNVs, and they add or subtract copies of genes.”

Later school start time ‘may boost GCSE results’ – “Thousands of teenagers are to get an extra hour in bed in a trial to see whether later school start times can boost GCSE results. University of Oxford researchers say teenagers start functioning properly two hours later than older adults…. Prof Russell Foster, director of sleep and circadian neuroscience at Oxford University, said that getting a teenager to start their day at 07:00 is like an adult starting theirs at 05:00.”

Africa is on time – “Using survey data on African income distributions and national accounts GDP, we estimate income distributions, poverty rates, and inequality indices for African countries for the period 1990–2011. We show that: (1) African poverty is falling rapidly…. All classes of countries, including those with disadvantageous geography and history, experience reductions in poverty. In particular, poverty fell for both landlocked as well as coastal countries; for mineral-rich as well as mineral-poor countries; for countries with favorable or with unfavorable agriculture; for countries regardless of colonial origin; and for countries with below- or above-median slave exports per capita during the African slave trade.” – h/t mugwump!

Ethnic Divisions and Production in Firms – “A body of literature suggests that ethnic heterogeneity limits economic growth. This paper provides microeconometric evidence on the direct effect of ethnic divisions on productivity. In team production at a plant in Kenya, an upstream worker supplies and distributes flowers to two downstream workers who assemble them into bunches. The plant uses an essentially random rotation process to assign workers to positions, leading to three types of teams: (a) ethnically homogeneous teams, and teams in which (b) one or (c) both downstream workers belong to a tribe in rivalry with the upstream worker’s tribe. I find strong evidence that upstream workers undersupply non-coethnic downstream workers (vertical discrimination) and shift flowers from non-coethnic to coethnic downstream workers (horizontal discrimination), at the cost of lower own pay and total output.” – spite! it’s so funny. – h/t ben southwood!

(Re)Becoming Human – “As the sun set over Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, nearly thirty minutes had passed since I had inserted a turkey baster into my bum and injected the feces of a Hadza man – a member of one of the last remaining hunter-gatherers tribes in the world – into the nether regions of my distal colon. I struggled to keep my legs in the air with my toes pointing towards what I thought was the faint outline of the Southern Cross rising in the evening sky. With my hands under my hips – and butt perched against a large rock for support – I peddled an imaginary upside down bicycle in the air to pass the time as I struggled to make sure my new gut ecosystem stayed put inside me. With my butt cheeks flexed and my, you know what puckered, I wondered if I had just made a terrible mistake….”

bonus bonus bonus bonus bonus: Around the world in 400,000 years: Journey of the red fox – “[T]his new research shows that the red foxes of North America and Eurasia have been almost entirely reproductively isolated from one another for roughly 400,000 years. During this time, the North American red fox evolved into a new species distinct from its Old World ancestors…. The new genetic research further suggests that the first red foxes originated in the Middle East before beginning their journey of colonization across Eurasia to Siberia, across the Bering Strait and into North America, where they eventually founded the North American population.”